Set-Up: Like many new parents, my wife/I went through endless lists of possible names for our first child. Our goals at the time were pretty simple:

Retro/classic but with a ‘modern’ twist (“Beckett” seemed to fit that mark)

Not typical, or at least not expected by most people who’ve heard a lot of baby names

Had good/solid nickname possibilities over time (aka “Bex” or “Becks” thus far)

No obviously ‘bad’ playground nicknames

Fit well with “Long” as a last name

Ultimately we stumbled upon ‘authors’ names one afternoon while driving around Fort Worth, hence the choice to take Samuel Beckett‘s (author of Waiting for Godot) last name as our son’s first (although Mr. Long will often claim that his lifelong love of the Boston Red Sox was the real reason; just don’t tell his wife).

Challenge: With a new kid soon to arrive in our home this coming March, we’re beginning to toss around various possibilities for her/his name. We won’t know the gender for 2 more weeks, so we’re still pretty wide open to suggestions.

Offer a literary name — author, character, location, concept, title — that you think would be an interesting boy’s or girl’s name for my wife/me to name our next child.

Make sure that it fits the criteria mentioned above (nicknames, retro/modern, etc).

Explain why you think it would work, including anything cool trivia-wise about that literary connection.

Set-Up: Last week, we took a brief look at a series of mini-essays about Chapters 5 & 6 (that were written by periods 1, 2 & 3 as a group in-class essay project). Each of you picked one you thought would be interesting based on the title alone and gave us a few things to look at that you thought was successful.

Challenge: Take a look at the full list one more time.

Pick a new essay title to look at and read the entire essay.

Tell us which essay you picked.

Identify 5 very specific things in that essay that you thought were done well.

Length: Varies

The list:

Small group mini-essay paragraph writing challenge (in lieu of the typical in-class essay):

Set-Up: We’ve crossed a certain point in the Lord of the Flies experience — by the beginning of chapter 5 — where it seems that every page is intentionally loaded with imagery. Seems that something vital is cleverly hidden in the jungle by Golding at every turn of the pig trail and curve of the horizon line.

While we don’t pretend to ‘get’ everything he’s throwing our way quite yet, we are developing decent radar for ‘tracking’ a few gems hidden in the creepers along the way.

Challenge:

Point out 1 thing that you think is really clever on the part of the author in terms of weaving together a many-layered story that obviously is hinting at something fare more complicated than just having ‘boys on an island’ try to get ‘rescued’.

Tell the rest of us what it means and why you think Golding is doing some pretty solid work as a writer in terms of pushing well beyond basic plot/action to hint at something bigger at the end of the novel.

Set-Up: Ever get that feeling that no matter how closely you read/highlight a book the first time around, there are still dozens upon dozens of things ‘under the surface’ that you can’t quite put your finger on? Well, if you do, you’re a healthy human being. At the same time, all of us are working very hard to grasp the deeper mysteries found on the island right now…even if we only have a few chapters, a couple of class discussions, and our gut instincts to guide us at this point.

Clearly there is something to be said for employing the ‘wisdom of crowds’ when where trying to figure out the hidden ideas that a novelist weaves into his/her story that go far, far beyond plot/action. In fact, there even is an amazing book by that title if you’re curious how groups (even anonymous groups of average people) are ’smarter’ than individuals (even experts).

With that said, let’s help each other out with a series of questions that one of your classmates asked me recently. Something tells me that a few others might find these really intriguing/helpful.

Challenge: Pick one of the following Ch 3 & 4 questions (or more, if you’d like) that were sent to me by a fellow student. Offer a solution/idea.

Here are the questions:

On pg 62, there is this random part about Roger throwing rocks at Henry. I think that I must have seriously blacked out when I was reading because it has no relevance to the story!! Arg. Is it showing how childish they are or foreshadowing or something because that would make a lot more sense than Golding randomly putting in a kid throwing rocks. Is there a relevance to the fact that he missed? Golding says, “perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw”. Does that mean he’s missing on purpose?

Jack is obviously more savage now. He’s constantly talking about hunting and and how “we” need meat when it’s actually just him. If he has an entire army of choir members, then why is he wasting time trying to explain his military tactics on page 63 to the youngest boys on the island? At first I thought that jack was going to be some sort of evil dictator, but now he’s confusing me with his strange kindness.

What is Simon doing on page 57? All that I see is that he sits down in the grass as the sun is going down and he gets up. I noticed that as Simon gets up, the same “candle buds” he mentions to Jack on pg 30 open up. What does that mean?

On page 56, Golding compares Simon to Jack two times saying, “his feet were bare like Jack’s” and “he looked over his shoulder as jack had”. Why? Why does Jack force Simon to eat the meat on pg 74? Well, he told everyone to eat it, but he tells Simon directly.

What does Simon mean by “it wasn’t a good island” on page 52? Why are the boys so surprised to hear him speak? They did invite him into their ‘group’ on the first day. I still don’t get why they did that by the way. Simon isn’t exactly special. All that he did was faint, so why is he included?

Set-Up: There is an expression — “6 degrees of separation” — that suggests how connected we individuals are as collective humanity, no matter how big a world it may be. In short, it means that:

if a person is one step away from each person they know and two steps away from each person who is known by one of the people they know, then everyone is an average of six “steps” away from each person on Earth.

Playing off of this concept, we’re going to play a weekly game called “6 Degrees of Separation” where we are given 2 topics (that seem to have nothing in common) which we must figure out a creative way to connect. The trick is that we have to use a logical set of connections to show how the 2 items are related in “6 steps”. Additionally, we will also offer a bit of trivia about each new step to showcase our knowledge and imagination.

Example: Let’s take 2 random topics — Ancient Egypt and “Lord of the Flies” — and figure out how to connect them in “6 steps” with some added trivia to show our knowledge:

Step 1: When someone in America thinks of ancient Egypt (1), he/she can’t help but think of legendary pharaohs given that everything one can easily think of from that period of Egypt’s history — from golden statues to the Great Pyramids — are remnants of these god-like leaders. It’s particularly interesting that pharaohs were often buried with everything they owned, gifts for them for the afterlife, and even their living servants.

Step 2: The most famous pharaoh (2) that I can think of is King Tut (1) which was one of my favorite stories growing up. Even though the amazing amount of gold discovered and the identity of the “boy king” were supposed to be the important parts of the story, this wasn’t what captured my attention at first. As a young kid, I actually daydreamed a lot about the idea of a curse placed on all of the people involved in finding the original tomb, especially given that the spirit of the pharaoh may have been angry that they disturbed his eternal slumber. This led me to study a range of curses and superstitions when I was in elementary school.

Step 4: On Elm Street in Dallas (3), specifically near the Texas School Book Depository (4), was the location of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.

Step 5:The Texas School Book Depository (4) was “a multi-floor warehouse for the storage of school textbooks and related materials” (according to Wikipedia) that shut down in 1970 when the business moved out. It was also in the year 1970 that the American Library Association awarded the first Coretta Scott King Award was given to African-American writers/illustrators who focused on the creation of books specifically for children and young people (5).

Step 6: One of the most famous school books ever taught in the United States, Lord of the Flies (6), appears to be about children and young people (5). Clearly, however, it is not “just a book about kids on an island”. Golding’s book was ranked by Time Magazine as one of the 100 best English language books published since 1923 (and was also ranked by the American Library Association as one of the most “challenged” books between 1990-2000.)